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Light snows and bitter cold weather have been the trend in January. It is the kind of weather that makes me want to curl up by the fireplace and read. Since this is the kind of weather we have had for over a month, I should be caught up with my reading, but I’m not.

There are just so many good new books out that I can’t find enough time. However, there are a few books I’ve read or have read about lately that I fell many readers of this column may find interesting.

Garrett Smith remembers Dec. 20 clearly. The Evergreen High tennis player and former lacrosse player was at a party, attended by other players. It was there that Smith found out about the passing of 36-year-old boys lacrosse coach Toby Plank, who lost his battle with carcenoid cancer.

“Everyone was bummed. We all just went home. A couple of people were crying,” Smith said. “We thought we could get through it. We thought maybe he could get through it, too. But it took a turn for the worst.”

Toby Plank, who came to Evergreen as an assistant coach for the varsity boys lacrosse team and later coached four seasons as the head coach of the varsity team, has been named the recipient of the 2010 Gerald J. Carroll Award, presented by US Lacrosse.

The award was created in memory of Coach Carroll in 1994. It honors annually a high school coach “whose success is best measured not in victories but in the support and guidance given to the balanced growth and development of young men who play the game,” Steven Berger, men’s game manager for US Lacrosse.

CONIFER — Alison Gorrell wanted it. At least that’s what the public address announcer at Conifer High School unequivocally stated as the clock was winding down in the fourth quarter of the Lady Lobos’ rivalry game with Evergreen on Jan. 7.

Nearly every winter just after a snow storm, people call me to ask about a beautiful bird at their feeder. It is described in several ways, but usually along the lines that it is mostly black with a lot of purple and green on it, and its whole body is spattered with white stars. When I tell them it sounds like a starling, almost without exception, they reply, “Why, no, it’s not a starling. It’s beautiful.”